How will David Stearns view luck when it comes to signing free agents?

For the most part, fans don’t want to admit how much luck – or good fortune if the word luck annoys you – plays in the game. My opinion is that players and front offices have a better understanding of that. Here’s a snippet of an interview with Taylor Tankersley, a veteran reliever that the Mets signed as LOOGY depth over a decade ago:

Your last 8 games you got hit pretty hard (.412/.450/.1.059) including 3 HR to your last 20 BF. What happened in this stretch?

Fractions of an inch. If you were to go back and look at video of those splits that you spoke of, I can remember getting Adrian Gonzalez out twice in Dolphins Stadium and combined he hit the ball about 750 feet and both got caught on the warning track in center field. I got Josh Hamilton out; he hit a screaming line drive right at the left fielder. Things like that, the ball was bouncing my way, I had good fortune. The last half of my big league outings last year the ball was falling in the gap or sinking over the fence. On paper it looked like a dramatic difference but there really wasn’t.

There are things that are the results of luck that you hope balance out over the course of a season. That ball that’s hit in the Bermuda Triangle that falls for a hit that’s just out of reach for the second baseman, the shortstop and the center fielder. That 115-mph line drive hit right at the third baseman for an out. That 3-2 pitch that’s two inches outside that’s called for a strike. You can probably think of other things like these, too.

But there are elements of luck where it’s not very likely it will even out during the year. How lucky were the 2024 Mets to play seven games against the Phillies in September, rather than in April, when they were cruising? How unlucky were they having to face Tyler Glasnow and Gavin Stone two times each and not getting a crack at Justin Wrobleski or Bobby Miller, instead?

The baseball statistical community has done a nice job of exposing things that are much more due to luck than skill. When Mallex Smith has a .366 BABIP and rides that to a 3.2 fWAR season, it doesn’t mean he’s a good player – it means he got lucky. When Tyler Anderson goes 15-5 with a 2.57 ERA but sets career marks in both HR/FB% (6.4) and LOB% (77.8), it doesn’t mean he’s an elite pitcher – it means he got lucky.

It remains the job of the front office to determine how much luck and how much skill went into a player’s season. And for the Mets, there’s perhaps no one better to view this decision-making process than with Luis Severino. How lucky was it that Severino stayed healthy for a full season of 30 starts for the first time since 2018? How lucky was it that he made seven home starts in April and May when Citi Field was playing as an extreme pitcher’s park? How lucky was it that he made six starts against the Marlins and Nationals, compared to the three that Jose Quintana got against the same two clubs?

The Mets extended the Qualifying Offer to Severino, which was worth $21.05 million. How lucky were they that he declined? Even with all of the things that went right for him last year, Severino posted just a 2.1 fWAR, which FanGraphs estimates being worth $16.8 million on the open market. It would have been an overpay if Severino was able to duplicate what he did in 2024. It would have been a massive overpay if he experienced some bad luck, instead. And what if after throwing just 209.1 innings over the previous five years only to turn around and throw 182 IP in the regular season and 16.2 more innings in the playoffs – Severino gets hurt next year?

The Mets were fortunate that Severino declined the QO. But were they lucky? It’s certainly possible – perhaps even likely – that David Stearns correctly read the market and figured there was a good chance that some club would offer Severino a long-term deal. There were rumors that Severino’s agent – Scott Boras – advised him to take the QO. Was it lucky that the player ignored his agent?

Of course, Severino isn’t the only player who benefited or was hurt by luck last year. Jose Iglesias was a great story and a very productive member of the 2024 Mets. But he also had a .382 BABIP, which is 67 points above his career rate in the category. How eager should Stearns be to bring him back?

My opinion is that there’s a player out there in free agency who suffered from some bad luck that Stearns should be considering and that’s Paul Goldschmidt. Coming into 2024, Goldschmidt had a lifetime .347 BABIP. But in his first 86 games last year, he had just a .295 mark in the category, nearly as unlucky as Iglesias was fortunate. And with the hits not falling in, Goldschmidt had just a .651 OPS. But in his final 68 games, Goldschmidt had an .803 OPS with 32 XBH in 275 PA.

Among a million other things that Stearns will have to consider this year, he’ll need to determine how much of Goldschmidt’s poor season last year was the continuation of an older player’s decline due to age and how much was due to a prolonged stretch where the hits didn’t fall in due to a BABIP 52-points worse than his career mark. And it’s not like he out-performed his BABIP in the latter stretch – it’s just that it wasn’t so much off his typical output. Goldschmidt had a .324 BABIP in that closing span, still 23 points below his career mark.